Desert Island Tricks
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Desert Island Tricks
Fergus Flanagan
BAFTA award-winning magician Fergus Flanagan graces our latest episode of Desert Island Tricks, inviting you on a whimsical journey through his magical mind. With a unique twist, Fergus imagines practicing magic alone on a deserted island, savoring the joy of tricks like the nostalgic Crystal Cleaver by Tenyo without the pressure of an audience. This concept sets the stage for an engaging session as Fergus shares his top eight magical selections, teasing listeners with his fascination for Simon Aronson's Four Stop Intersection.
Our discussion with Fergus uncovers the dedication and artistry involved in perfecting magic scripts, especially for card tricks. Discover techniques for memorising card sequences, the influence of rhythm in practice, and the importance of engaging storytelling in performances. We also explore how iconic magicians like Simon Aronson, David Blaine, and Greg Wilson shape the art of magic today, stressing the need for captivating presentations that go beyond merely performing tricks.
In a spirited dialogue, we delve into magical tricks and tips that captivate and surprise audiences. From the timeless card-through-window to the underrated charm of rubber band magic, Fergus offers insights and critiques on what makes a performance memorable. We ponder over the often-maligned Dancing Cane and introduce a playful banishment segment idea. Closing with a nod to the mesmerising Random Card Generator by Jeff Price. This episode promises to enchant and enlighten both magic enthusiasts and curious listeners alike.
Fergus' Desert Island Tricks:
- Crystal Cleaver
- Four Stop Intersection
- Point Blank
- Window
- Dancing Cane (to dispose)
- Crazy Sam’s Handcuff’s
- Tagged
- Random Card Generator
Book. Strong Magic
Item. Huel
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
Thank you for watching Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. We have a guest waiting in the wings, and today's guest is a BAFTA award winner. How incredible that we finally get him. We wanted him for a little while, but his schedule is so incredibly busy at the moment, so it's been great to finally pin him down. You would have seen him on various different TV appearances, including one that I thought was really quirky, which was help. My supplier teacher is magic. He is, uh, I think he was virtual magician of the year through the magic circle as well, and for good reason. He put so much time and effort into his virtual shows. Um, I remember talking to him through the pandemic about virtual shows, and some of his ideas were always super clever and smart. But today's guest is Mr Fergus Flanagan. Hello Fergus, hello Jamie, how are you Very well, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you what. I'm very excited to be doing this because this pod has been particularly interesting to prepare for and I understand that that. You know. The brief is entirely open to interpretation, but, um, I think, on the very basis, I'm assuming I don't have an audience to perform for on a desert island. So, uh, I've really been sort of looking at what I want from magic, um, and actually there's, I think there's, one thing on my list that's in my working set and that's it. So, yeah, it's been really fun to prepare for.
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to be an interesting list. I can already tell. Well, you said about you not having an audience. You can have an audience. It's in your own imagination. This is like your dream island, so you can. One of my favorite podcasts is one called Off menu and, uh, they are two comedians that own a dream restaurant and anything goes. So maybe soon we'll have to start saying this is a dream island, so anything you want on there can, can be got you?
Speaker 1:well, mine apparently. Then, in my dream, it is people-less, it is just, it is just me excellent.
Speaker 2:So if this is your first time joining us, we are about to maroon fergus on his very own island. When he's there, he's allowed to only take eight tricks, one book and one non-magic item that he uses for magic. All of the particulars, like, like we've just discussed, how many people are there, how big the island is, what's there? All that good stuff is all in fergus's own imagination. He can have whatever he wants, uh, but with that being said, we're going to find out what fergus has in his first position. What do you have in your first position, fergus?
Speaker 1:so, um, I've gone for crystal cleaver by tenyo and there's a few reasons for this, but firstly it is absolute nostalgia. It brings me back to Davenport's. Going there, it brings me back to flicking through their catalogue and the dusty, musky smell of that. It's sort of trinkets and toys. It's cosy, it's cozy. It's ridiculous, it's ingenious. I just love the tenure effects. It's tricks like this that are the reason most of us got into magic and we can't really perform them in a professional capacity. Also, with Crystal Cleaver, I actually don't know how it's done. So I saw it when I was really little and never bought it for whatever reason. Always wanted it and I have a pretty good idea how it's done. But I've never opened the instructions, never had it in my hands to play with. So I'm assuming, arriving on my desert island, a bit down, a bit depressed, I'll have a lovely little Christmas morning moment where I open Crystal Cleaver and I find out the secret.
Speaker 2:Excellent, excellent choice. It's really interesting that you don't know. I think we've had a few people mention that they don't know how the tricks are done, but they just enjoy the moment of mystery. You will, and they want to prolong it.
Speaker 1:But uh, I've always thought I wonder if anyone in the world has ever done a stage size version oh yeah, there must have been surely um, and I'm sure someone has a nice way of gigging it in a close-up environment. I can't quite imagine what that is, but I'd love to hear if someone did it with someone does. And I think you know, for me magic is twofold. It's it's both the silliest and most trivial thing in my life and it's also the thing I take the most seriously and treat with the utmost importance in my life and know people often debate should we take magic seriously? And and I don't think the answer to that is a binary one I think it can be both ridiculous and both very serious, and I think um little effects like this, uh, like crystal cleaver, remind me to enjoy the silliness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great, great choice and it's a wonderful Tenyo trick. It does feel just very again, yeah, nostalgic, because I think a lot of us saw it when we were younger and hopefully the current generation of magicians coming up get to see some of these Tenyo tricks and experience them as well.
Speaker 1:Definitely. I mean, mean, look at, um, invisible zone, that thing's a miracle. I mean, uh, it's just such a fun, silly, bizarre falling thing, um, and you know something you pick up at 10 years old and then you stick in a drawer and you never look at again.
Speaker 2:But yeah, they are incredible constructions yeah, it's a great choice and a great one to go in. You said that it was going to be an interesting list, and I think it's going to be, by looking at this as your first choice. So what did you put in your second position?
Speaker 1:So this is a trick that when I saw I just couldn't believe what I'd witnessed. It is called Four Stop Intersection by Simon Aronson and what you have is four spectators all cut to a card Think of a card. They all shuffle up their packets, all the packets are put together. It's just an entirely mixed deck, and then Aronson tells the four spectators what those cards are and it uses a stack, which is something I use and have used for a long time. I say I use it's more, I know it, but I don't actually put it into practice.
Speaker 1:I remember James Wendt was always staggered that he used to just test me on a stack, point at me and go three of hearts, the right rhythm and make it as falling and as smooth as Simon does and, I think, be off to a desert island. It would give me plenty of time to put in the appropriate work into my stack and perfect this routine. I think if ever I did a competition, I never would. After having done the virtual magician of the year, it was the most anxiety inducing, terrifying thing I've ever done. But if I was to do a competition, this would be in my close up act or close up comp act.
Speaker 2:So was there a reason that you went for Aronson stack? Was it for this routine?
Speaker 1:That is a very good question and I know it's sort of it's the modern rivalry, the big rivalry of our times, mnemonica or the Aronson stack, I think it was. Just someone mentioned the Aronson stack to me first and that was it and I kind of I just, yeah, got involved with that and learned that one. I think each stack has its advantages and disadvantages but yeah, it was a pure circumstance of accident. Is the reason I learned the Aronson one. Do you know one?
Speaker 2:I don't, and this is what I was going to say. So, if there are listeners and I should really ask, because we've had several people ask mention stacks on here before. Maybe I should ask this to each guest but what was your approach to tackling the education of it or the learning of it?
Speaker 1:Again, a good question. Honestly, I can't quite remember, but knowing me, it would have just been obsession to a pathetic degree. I'm amazing, I have one but she went out on a Sunday and she came back I think it was like six and a half, seven hours later and I was sat in exactly the same spot doing exactly the same thing with the Rubik's Cube and she just went. Your obsession is both sad and impressive, and so I think it would have just been. Once I get something in sight that I want to learn. It's just repetition, repetition, repetition. So I don't think there was any great secret.
Speaker 1:You know, people say when you're learning a stack, don't learn like Jack of Spades, king of Clubs, five of Clubs, two of Hearts, don't learn it rhythmically, in a kind of order, you want to learn the cards in in random positions. Um, I seem to remember learning a rhythm of cards and then learning them in random positions, and then something that's very helpful, that I'm sure everyone has done who has ever learned a stack, is to write the numbers on the backs of, uh, appropriate cards and then just cut to random cards and try and guess what card it is and then do that in the other way around. So, looking at the faces, guess what number it is, if that makes sense. That's a really helpful way of doing it. Also, I should just say that, simon Aronson, you know I nearly put shuffleboard in. Shuffleboard is the most phenomenal effect. If you haven't checked this out to anyone listening, this is show closer worthy. It's a remarkable effect.
Speaker 1:Without giving too much away, I would just recommend going and YouTubing it. It is a prediction effect with a with a pack of cards. Um, I don't have a place for it in my parlor show or stage show at the moment, but it is one that is always on the back burner. Uh, it's just there waiting to be put into something. That prior commitment I mean prior commitment is a self-working mirror miracle. Uh, you know, Aronson, you know, sadly passed away, but he was just a genius. He really, really was fantastic. And this would also mean you'd have to give me a pack of cards on the island which I could constantly fidget with and play with. So I'm killing two birds there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll give you a deck of cards, red or blue, it's red.
Speaker 1:And it's funny, that isn't it. I don't know why we are so loyal to a colour. Harry D'Cruz is loyal to blue, and I feel that sort of makes him the black sheep of the family, because who's using blue bikes?
Speaker 2:We're going to be inundated now with people complaining on the side of blue bikes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, no, I've always used red. Do you know what I? What it was? I think it's because blaine used red bikes when he started out on his street special, at least, I remember him using them more than blue. If you ever use blue, and in an effort to be blaine, um, I think that's why I went to red, and it's probably the reason that right now, I'm wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans.
Speaker 2:Um, just still trying to be blaine. Great choice, so that leads us nicely into your third selection. So what did you put in your third position?
Speaker 1:So third one is Point Blank by Greg Wilson, and this is a routine where you have a pack of double blank cards and you get a spectator to sign or write on one of those cards and then you effectively do anything with it. So it goes in the middle, it rises to the top, you peel the signature off, you rub it back on. Fantastic routine in the hands of Greg Wilson, who we can revert back to in a second because I have a few things to say about him. It's a remarkable routine, but it's not the reason why it makes my list. Well, there are two reasons. First reason so the fact that I can plug that. I sell double blank decks. If you're listening, you want them contact me.
Speaker 1:The second reason is and just to digress slightly for a moment, I think a tragic trait we have as magicians is descriptive magic, you know, describing what we're going to do as we're doing it, and kind of stepping on the magical moments. And and whether you're doing a chop cup or a three fly, you know, no matter how magic-y the routine is, would what you're saying be interesting if you took the trick out of it? If you took the trick away, would your script be insightful, funny, engaging, interesting, any or all of of the above. Um, that's also why I hate coin magic so much, because so often it's just look, and there's a coin here and it goes over here, and now it's under my elbow and look, it's in your hand. It's just kind of this, this slightly um, chaotic nonsense, uh, script. I'm going to get hate mail from coin coin people, um, but everything I hate in magic is exactly what my blank card routine is. In all the years I just haven't bothered to sit down and script it properly. So it's very much. A car goes in the middle, it's back on top. Does the ink move? It does.
Speaker 1:Now, there's no proper point or meaning to the routine and I figured, if you're casting me away to a desert island no idea what I've done wrong, by the way the perfect thing to bring would be this routine Finally, sit down, give it a proper script, a proper narrative, something interesting, something engaging. Because if you take the trick out of my hands, what I'm saying in that routine is nonsense. And this brings me on to a wider point. It gets great reactions, jamie. I feel like such a fraud. It kills. And just because something does get great reactions, jamie, I feel like such a fraud, it kills. And just because something does get great reactions, it doesn't mean it's good enough and it doesn't mean the reactions itself can be inherently impressive.
Speaker 1:We don't put the hard work in to the script and and the other areas, um, and when I say script, you might know what you're saying and the words you're saying, um, but that doesn't mean they're of interest. And again, I think it's important. So I'm not saying this from a place of um on my high horse, or I'm not trying to be pious, because it's exactly what I've done with this, this blank card routine. I've just been lazy and I've let the, I've let the trick itself do everything for me. I mean, it is a technical trick, but you know, everywhere else in my close up routines, in my parlor, in my stage, I try and really put the work into narrative callback story and just with this I have, my goodness, I have waffle. That has got to be the longest answer you've ever got on this podcast.
Speaker 2:It's a very, very good answer and you've raised a lot of really interesting points. And I know in Andy's Andy Nyman's episode we spoke about blank deck endings. But what's really interesting about this is it's a blank deck starter, so you're introducing this strange deck of cards at the very beginning, instead of just approaching a group with a normal deck of cards.
Speaker 1:This is a completely alien concept to them a blank deck of cards moments, um, but it just, uh, yeah, as I say it kind of just because it's getting great reactions. It doesn't necessarily mean, um, it's as great as it it should be. Uh, and I find, you know, I hate in magic saying here's what's going to happen. Why are you saying, well, here's what's going to happen? That is the, the laziest, most filler line. And again, I'm not judging, because I say it, I don't like myself saying it, give myself a beating on the way home.
Speaker 1:But that, and also watch, watch, means nothing. There is only one man who can say watch and it be enough, and that is David Blaine when he says, watch, I'm watching. Um, but we all, we all find ourselves falling into these um little problems and tropes, and I think part of that is, uh, often lack of preparation, and then it's things going wrong on the fly or someone interrupting or, uh, you having to think on your feet. So we just use these um, these sort of filler phrases, when in reality, actually silence would just be far more impactful a lot of the time you've really raised a couple of really good points there and I know that we've had point blank before from the pyrotechnic pasteboards dvd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but and you mentioned about the script but sometimes a trick is perfect the way it is. Sometimes there is that golden nugget trick. When you see it, you and gregory wilson's just amazing. He's just such a phenomenal performer. When you see him do it it does feel like nothing. No input that I put into this trick is going to make it any better than it already is yeah, I mean greg's, you know, phenomenal, I think.
Speaker 1:Um, when I was about 14. So I started magic about 9 or 10 and then at about 14 I got on the greg wilson hype train. I wanted everything. Greg give me that and that and that, and he releases a lot of material, so it was so bad actually I sort of became a mini Greg and I had little affectations, just lifted all his lines, all those terrible things you do when you're learning and you're young, and I sort of said things that were what an adult should say, not what a child should say. I started speaking very quickly like Greg. I hope he's not listening to this, but it was really awful.
Speaker 1:And actually I know Harry D'Cruz has got my YMC competition act somewhere on tape that I've been trying to avoid watching for the last three years and he, um, he found it in an archive just after the pandemic, I think. And, um, yeah, within that I just, I just was a mini Greg Wilson, um, and and do you know what? I think that's fine when you're, when you're that age and you're trying to find your feet and work out who you are and what sort of performer you are and all of those things. It's immensely complicated. So I don't begrudge baby fergus for doing that, I just don't want to have to watch it excellent choice, superb trick, and it does bring us to your fourth spot.
Speaker 2:So what did you put in your fourth position?
Speaker 1:so I take it there's there can be a window on this island it can be whatever you want.
Speaker 2:It's your dream island fantastic.
Speaker 1:In that case, we're looking at window by david stone. So the greatest card through glass, card through window, ever invented, in my opinion, is window by david stone. This, um, my first ever live tv appearance was on blue peter and at the time I had shot window in my showreel. Uh, so window is a card through window or card through glass. Anyone who remembers David Blaine in the early days? He became popular, or even more popular, through an effect where he got an audience member to select a card. It went back in the pack, he threw the cards at a window and on the other side of the glass was the card that had been picked. Absolute miracle. And David Stone released an effect whereby you throw the pack at the window and on the other side of the glass is the wrong card.
Speaker 1:So you've got a couple of things at play. One, the magician in trouble, which is always a great premise with any audience. Two, any time you can lean into what an audience have as an expectation of a trick and flip. That that's a brilliant thing to do and at the time you know, when I was first on television 2011, people still remembered very clearly David Blaine doing that trick. So when it went wrong. They immediately had an emotional image of what it was meant to look like. And then what happens is you walk up to the window, you wave your hand over the glass or the card on the other side of the glass and it changes on the other side of the glass. On the other side of the glass and it changes on the other side of the glass. The audience member can rub the glass. Nothing to see. And I think it Because it was.
Speaker 1:It was a feature of my showreel for 10, 12 years and it was when Blue Peter saw it. They loved it so much. They built me a window in a box on set and we did the trick in the studio with this purpose built window which, looking back, was a mad thing to do. Looking back was a mad thing to do and even though it was nothing to do, it to practice. It is so satisfying. You're just watching that card on the other side of the glass change yep, it's a great, great choice.
Speaker 2:It's a wonderful trick, and what I also loved about that was they had lots of different ways to, without giving too much away, to trigger the moment of magic to happen, and I used to quite like that as well.
Speaker 1:That was really clever yeah, I mean, it was just a really smart, lovely play on something that was specifically to me as well, an iconic trick because of you know my stalker obsession with blaine. Um, to see one of his sort of textbook effects, uh, and a twist on that was was just something. Immediately I was like I must, I must do that effect, um, and think those you know any kind of, it's so dramatic, anything where you throw cards, or cards fly about or cascade. I really like that image. Whatever the effect is going to be, I like the drama of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a really cool choice. It's one that I don't think it's probably available anymore, but if you can get your hands on one or find out how it works, you'll actually be surprised how the gimmick itself works as well. It doesn't. Perhaps it's not orientated in the way that you would first expect.
Speaker 1:Put it that way it's really cleverly constructed to allow the trick to work seamlessly I mean david stone, you know, is just uh incredible to watch. He is a a thunderstorm of brilliance, just whether it's creatively or performance. On the performance side, he really is something else do you want to become a magician?
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Speaker 2:It's literally less than a pint unbelievable great choice, and it does lead us over your halfway point to number five. So what's in your so?
Speaker 1:it's a dancing cane. More specifically, it is every single dancing cane in existence and I'd bury them deep in the sand of the island I'm assuming the sand. I don't know if there's sand, but I would get rid of every dancing cane and do the entire magic community, more importantly, the muggle community, a big favor. It is, for me, just the worst effect in magic. I've seen it done by the very best people in the world and it just looks like exactly what it is, and there may be clever nuances. They add to it in in terms of hookup and things like that, but no audience member is thinking about it. They're just going. That's a honor, uh, without giving away any method there. I don't know if, um, that's allowed, but given I can do anything on this island, I'm taking I'm taking shipping containers of dancing canes, jamie, and I'm burying them.
Speaker 2:Interesting. We've never, ever had someone take an item to the island to just get rid of it. It does make me think that maybe in future episodes we need to add one item that they could banish for forever on an island. Oh yes, I like that a lot, so maybe fergus flanagan has just started an extra little nugget to the podcast, which I think would be good, a bit like magic 101 room, I can move on to the island and sort of a temporary basis when guests are sent there and dispose of their one item that they want to get rid of.
Speaker 1:I will do that for the magic community. Jamie excellent ends up in some sort of award from the magic circle, and marvin so be it excellent choice.
Speaker 2:Uh, we have actually had people choose dancing cane on the episodes as well oh no, oh god.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a few enemies made. I apologize, I'm sorry to, yeah, anyone doing it. I just, um, do you know what it's? I was talking to harry about this this morning. It's that audience a and audience b idea.
Speaker 1:That is a stephen idea or Stephen Long description, and it's the most fantastic idea to keep in mind in magic. And it's your audience A, your audience there in the moment experiencing your magic, reacting, and audience B are exactly the same people later on trying to deconstruct how you did it and sort of protecting audience B's experience is well, arguably it's harder, but it's much more important because it's the lasting memory and I think, with an effect like Dancing Cane, I just don't think there's any magic that exists for the audience beyond the theatre, because I just think everyone knows what's going on and beyond that, it's such a bizarre dated effect for me that, um, I think it would almost detract from other things you would do, because, uh, um, I, I, yeah, I think there's something that potentially, um, cheapens everything else you do. I just think the, the effect is really transparent. Also, um, just as a slight aside to that kind of that sort of era of magic and manipulation, balls and card productions. I really love that type of act. I love that sort of act.
Speaker 1:But, um, I think people who do it and commit to it and it is their style, it is their performance, their way of being you just feel like when you watch lance burton do his dove, you just feel like you're stepping into the 20s or the 30s. But I think sort of so often these effects are thrown in for maybe like a really young performer, maybe like a 14 year old performer who's talking like a 14 year old, and then he's suddenly doing a manip act with a dancing cane and I just find that a really odd theatrical choice and dancing cane is one of those ones for me. That sort of is just so often. Someone's been doing lots of great stage effects and then they throw in a dancing cane and it just feels odd.
Speaker 2:You've justified your choice there, so I don't think anyone can be too angry.
Speaker 1:Complaint emails to Jamie at Jamie Dawes God.
Speaker 2:So we've gone bluebacks, coin tricks and now the dancing cane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to see my friend list drop on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Well, that brings us to your sixth position. So what did you put in your sixth spot?
Speaker 1:Sixth spot is Crazy Sam's handcuffs. Now, for anyone listening, Crazy Sam's handcuffs is a rubber band effect where two rubber bands and I swear to God, you see it happen they just melt through each other and they melt apart. And I was lucky enough to see Sam do this live and it was absolutely mind blowing. I mean, it really was, and it was so close to my face. It was just. It was brilliant.
Speaker 1:But I think I have just a bit of a guilty pleasure for rubber band magic. But I can't bring myself to gig it. I just can't bring myself to take out two little rubber bands at a black tie event and say here, check these out. So, consequently, I don't put the hours into practicing rubber band magic because I just know I'm never going to use it. However, you have stuck me on a desert island for reasons we still don't know, and so I'm going to have an enormous amount of time for my own love of learning, my own enjoyment. There's no audience, as we've already discussed. Apparently, I banished them all, even though I didn't have to. So I'm going to put my life's work into my secret lover, which is rubber band magic and crazy sounds. Have you seen it, Jamie? It's wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a really clever method as well. It's almost counterintuitive, because it shouldn't look as good as it does when you find out how it works. Completely.
Speaker 1:Couldn't agree more. Yeah, when I found out, I was like that cannot be it, because it just can't work like that. And yeah, it's brilliant. That sort of a worthy mention is true by many. Lindenfield, um, true, is phenomenal. You're basically just putting a rubber band around your fingers, you're pulling it through your fingers, pulling it off your hand. Um, it's like crazy penetrations. Um, but again, I sort of I practice that in the dark of the night, under the covers, when no one's no one's looking. I can't get past it. I can't get past the rubber band thing. Um, this is like therapy, jamie, I was. When I was preparing for this, I stumbled across a lot of my own issues and insecurities, um, and that's definitely one.
Speaker 2:So we've just added rubber band magic at a black tie event to your list of complaints coming through.
Speaker 1:Oh God, I hit with the top rubber band people. You'll have to somehow block them from listening to this episode.
Speaker 2:Well, one of them's on next week, so I'm joking I'm joking, I'm joking. No, that's a great choice. It's a wonderful trick, and if anyone does do rubber band magic, it really is a phenomenal version of it, and it takes away a little bit of the knuckle bustingness of it. That sort of just works.
Speaker 1:I I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult than it was now. I'm saying a lot more difficult to do, not to do like sam does it. Um, by the way, I'm assuming his name is sam yes, it is.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna attempt his last name, but it is sure, sure sure, great, great, great, I mean makes sense.
Speaker 1:But I had just totally assumed that, um, and when he does it it is. It is like watching exactly what would happen if you could just melt rubber bands through each other and I think to get to that level of it would be, you know, serious, serious hours, and then you put in angles and audience members and all the things we have to consider all of the time and you know you've got um your 10 000 hours. But I think, just as a thing to pick up and do, I mean, within sort of 20 minutes, I was filming a good, good video for neb and sending that over. Um, so yeah, it's uh, it's really, really great and a wonderful choice.
Speaker 2:It does bring us on to the tail end of your tricks, though. So what did you put in number seven?
Speaker 1:also I should point out, there'd be no one to see me practicing it on the desert island, so I'd be shame free. Brilliant, um, I'm just gonna take richard sanders with me, if that's all right. Uh, so I'll just pack him, please. And I mean, come on the guy, interlace any card.
Speaker 1:Remarkable fiber optics, I mean again a bit like rubber band magic. I can't quite bring myself to do rope magic. It just um, it just doesn't quite sit with my style and but fiber optics is one of the greatest dvds released. I'm going to say that as someone who doesn't perform rope magic and never will. But it is one piece of rope, it is one pair of scissors and you can create, I mean cartoon, like moments of magic. You're just pulling the ends off a rope, throwing them back in, cutting the middle with your fingers. It's so incredibly visual and practical and angle proof, but never going to do it.
Speaker 1:What I am going to take with me is an effect called tagged, and tagged is you have your audience member, selected card let's say it's the three of diamonds and then you place the card back in the deck. I take out a chain I'm wearing from under my shirt, I wave the pack over the chain and your card appears impaled on the chain and that chain is running through the card. I take the chain off, you can take the chain with the card impaled on it. It's like a crazy, um, magical moment. Again, it was a lovely showreel bit. I've done it a few times on television, I think it's. I don't think I could ever get bored of, of watching it. So I could just sit there on my desert island just watching that card impale again and again and not get bored for eternity. So it's, it's such a brilliant effect, it's an impossible souvenir and and the reason for including this is it is one of my favorite moments of an audience member misremembering a magic trick.
Speaker 1:Now, for anyone listening who doesn't really understand what I mean by that, as magicians we're constantly confronted, or rather we're constantly told stories by non-magicians about tricks we've done and they make them significantly more impressive than they actually were. Okay, so there are certain limitations to tags. But one guy said to me about seven years after I'd done tags for him and a group of other boys. He said he was retelling the story at a party of what I did and he said I shuffled up the cards, I took one out, I signed it. I shuffled it back into the cards.
Speaker 1:Fergus didn't touch the deck. Then I looked under my shirt at the chain I was wearing, and impaled on that chain was my signed card and I said, yes, it was exactly that, and I just I love in magic how you can either create false memories and anchor false memories for audience members, um, and I also like how they misremember things themselves, and I think part of that is because they want to get across how they felt in that moment. They really want the person they're telling the story to to understand the impossibility of what they witnessed. So, either consciously or subconsciously I don't quite know what it is but they give you a significantly more impressive version of a trick you did, and I just think that's a really fascinating little thing yeah, it's a great, great effect and it's one of those things as well.
Speaker 2:It's so unpredictably going to happen. There's no way that they could anticipate that you're just going to impale a card onto the chain that you're wearing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a bizarre, truly impossible moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great choice and you're right, richard Saunders is pretty incredible, and it does bring us to your last item. So what did you put in your last spot?
Speaker 1:So I sort of started things with one of the first tricks. I was sort of fooled by crystal clear and I want to finish with the last thing I was fooled by. Fooled by crystal clear. So I want to finish with the last thing I was fooled by, which is RCG random card generator by Jeff Price. I saw this at Blackpool 2024.
Speaker 1:I'd only been to Blackpool once, by the way, when I was 15, decided that was enough magicians for me for the next 20 years, didn't go again till this year for me for the next 20 years. Didn't go again until this year. Um, and it was the most amazing experience. If you haven't been to blackpool, do go. It really is phenomenal. Um, listen to me selling it. I've been once. What do I know? And jeff price? Firstly, what a guy. He is a lovely, lovely man. Secondly, the best demo ever. He shows you how everything works. So you know exactly what you're buying before you buy it.
Speaker 1:And he did an effect called Random Card Generator. What you have is a playing card and on the playing card it has all the values of 1 to 13 and all the suits in kind of little squares and you tear up the card into its individual squares I hope I'm making sense here. You shake them up and drop them and any value or suit that lands not showing you eliminate from the game and you carry on down to one card. So you end up with a value and a suit. If that doesn't make sense, just check out Jeff Price, and it was the card he predicted.
Speaker 1:In short, and about halfway through the trick, I started going this better not go where I think it's going to go, jeff. And of course it did. And I saw it a second time and then a third time and I walked off during a third time because I just had enough. My mind was so blown. And the best part about it is it works on a premise that most of us are familiar with. It works on the premise of a trick that I teach in workshops, but he has layered it in such a way it's just so falling. And the joy that Jeff gave to me and many others for just being like so fooled, so incredibly fooled yeah, it was just a real joy. And you know, when someone takes something, a really old idea, from a book and they just elevate it into proper, I think, miracle status, it's really exciting as a magician and we don't see that a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like a phenomenal trick. It's one that we've had before as well. So you are the second person to mention this, and the other person was Sam Strange. If you haven't listened to his episode, go and listen. But he said very much the same thing. It was very much. I know what's going on here, but I have no idea what's going on here. Everything was just completely counterintuitive to him completely, it's.
Speaker 1:I mean, sam is great, by the way. Um, it really was just a moment of. This can't happen, it's too fair, and and, just like an audience member, I ended up thinking sort of absurd theories that were ridiculous. Um, and then being embarrassed, I thought after so long in magic that such a theory would be possible. But you know that's what a great trick does. You go down the rabbit hole and then, before you know it, you just you can't get back out.
Speaker 2:Great choice, a wonderful trick, and it's definitely one that I think a lot of people will be checking out. It's very clever, it's superb thinking, it's really really smart. Now, up until this point, you've had eight choices, and now you're on to your two curveball items. So you have one book and one non-magic item that you use for magic. So what did you put in your book position?
Speaker 1:my favorite book. Oh, this was an easy one, um, strong magic by darwiniz. You must have had this many times, I'm sure it's just if you haven't read Strong Magic. So it's theory based, but you will read that and you will be a better performer. After 20 pages and after the whole book you'll be a different performer and a different thinker.
Speaker 1:Everything I Feeling, I had about magic, and I couldn't even necessarily articulate or quite pinpoint, was summarized in that book. Every line is gold. It's just filled with so much wisdom, so much good thinking and it really is one that, yeah, everyone should be reading. And I think you know most of us fall in and out of love with tricks a little bit. You know we can get a bit bored of them or a bit tired of them. I just don't think you can ever get bored of presentations and theory and, um, the reason for doing what you're doing, I think it's it's very hard to get get bored of that um, and that for me, I think, is much harder work than the tricks. So, um, sometimes we, we maybe stop working on our presentations because it's, you know, you have creatively, you have to go through that horrible rut, sort of the writer's block and all of those things. But um, I just recommend pick up Strong Magic. You will not regret it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great choice, and earlier on you mentioned a few times that you tend to favour the presentation behind a trick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also, you know, I think it's probably a bit more fun to be harsher than I actually feel towards certain tricks Don't worry you dancing caners, I'm not going to actually bury every single one of them but yeah, I do think there are certain things where, you know, the moment of magic can just speak for itself as well. Extreme burn is a great example of that. You know, that's one of one of my favorite working effects as well. Extreme burns a great example of that. You know, that's one of one of my favorite working effects. Um, and that is just a very clear moment of magic. Doesn't need much of a presentation or a hook, um, but yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think it's impossible not to say that story is everything. Just look at Darren. Darren has had a 25 year career in a very fickle age where people are famous for two seconds, and he has somehow, as a magician, sustained an incredibly popular career. And the reason for that is because he puts story above everything else. And I mean, you don't need me to tell you that darren has spoken about this through many mediums over many years, but his story is always evolving, he's fluid, he's always learning. Therefore, that bleeds into his magic um. So I think the key to a rewarding time in magic probably um, yeah, yeah, it's a great choice.
Speaker 2:And it does lead us on to your curveball. Curveball item, so your non-magic item that you use for magic. So what did you go for that?
Speaker 1:fuel. It is fuel, jamie, and this is going to sound like a paid advert, but Huel is. I can't believe I've gone with this, but it is a sort of meal replacement protein shake thing, but it genuinely changed my relationship with performing relationship with performing. So, as someone who suffers with severe anxiety in the form of OCD and um, I sometimes find either getting making time to eat well difficult or I don't feel like eating because I'm about to go out on stage in front of 600 people. But if you don't eat, you know the knock-on effects of that are terrible. So I found that this um, this thing called huel, which neb introduced me to, and I used to think he was a weirdo when he ate it because it's like space food, but that is something that I would struggle to live without. I think, um, yeah, now that it really does sound like I've got shares in your. I don't have shares in your. Let's just clarify that. Um, but it's just, it has been a really helpful thing to me I suddenly feel like we're on a stephen bartlett podcast.
Speaker 1:We've switched to a different podcast I uh was doing a routine back on. It was a couple of months ago and it was like a mind reading routine. Funny, that that's a lot of my material is sort of mind reading, psychological stuff, but there's nothing on the list, uh, there. But anyway I said to someone um, tell me something you can't live without, and not something boring like your mobile phone. Uh, give me something random, like for me it's a thing called huell. And the guy went all right, bartlett.
Speaker 2:Um, so I might have to, uh, I might have to stop, stop that because he, uh, he's all over it well, it's the first time that we've had any food or drink related items as a uh, luxury item, let's say, or a non-magic item, so it's really interesting. But you did raise a couple of things, and I know I've spoken to a couple of friends of mine before. When you are gigging, a lot of the gigs are late night or they're sort of mid-afternoon into late evening, and your opportunity to have a healthy meal or any sort of meal sometimes if, if we're all perfectly honest, it's really difficult so little hacks like that in your day really do help 100 and um.
Speaker 1:I think, especially if you are someone who is naturally has an anxious disposition, not eating will serve to perpetuate that tenfold um. So yeah, I think an approach to performance really has to be a holistic one exercising right, sleeping well, eating well um, no, I think you may.
Speaker 2:You made some really, really valid points and looking back over your list, so here we've got, uh, blue backs, we've got a free fly, we've got a dancing cane and we've got crazy sam's handcuffs in a black tie suit. Uh, I think that's a great list it was like I said it was.
Speaker 1:It's such a fun one to prepare for. Um, I wanted to put some stuff from roddy on there. Flux um was just a great one. Sadly it had to go for dancing cane because I thought my obligation to remove that from the magic world is far more important than plugging roddy stuff. But um, yeah, his his effects are wildly good.
Speaker 1:They're just and you know what's so great about roddy's stuff? Um, but flux is a thing where you have someone think of a card and essentially, um, you hold a playing card with the back face, with the back down, and they draw dots on the back of the card and then you turn it over, you shake the dots and it may, it morphs into the writing of the card they're thinking of. And I remember practicing that at home and I had to message Roddy to say I've like never fooled myself so much with an effect. It looks like TV magic in the real world. It really does. I know people ban that term around a lot. But phenomenal Little door, just the most creative, weird but brilliant little effect.
Speaker 1:Roddy's stuff doesn't necessarily suit my style so I've never gigged anything he has put out, but I tend to buy it all. I bought Sewn On as a recommendation from James Wendt, I think, didn't even take it out of the packaging. But I just find there's something quite addictive about Roddy's creations and inventions. He just puts a lot of fun into, into magic and roddy is just such a lovely person as well.
Speaker 2:He's, he's very warm and he's always willing to give time. Uh, we, definitely we need to get him on here really oh my god, you so should.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear what his, his eight are, and you should ban him from saying any of his own, because it would just be eight of his own effects, because they're all so brilliant. But Little Door's a funny one. I've almost found place for it a few times because it's got potential to have such an interesting hook. But yeah, just haven't quite yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great choice and what a great list. We've gone all the way from sort of your nostalgic past with Crystal Cleaver all the way through Point Blank Four Stop Intersection Window by David Stone, which is quite a nostalgic trick as well, because it's quite old now. You've banished Dancing Canes, Crazy Sam's Handcuffs brilliant, tagged by Richard Sanders. We've got the random car generated by jeff price and your book was strong magic and your drink is fueling all of that wonderful magic. What a great list so varied. If people want to find out more about you, fergus, where can they go?
Speaker 1:well, um, if you want to say lovely things, fergusflanagancom, if you want to complain about my views on dancing canes and coin magic, then it is jamiedawescouk thank you so much for joining me, fergus, and giving me your list thank you, jamie, um well done on the enormous success of this podcast yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, it's down to all of our wonderful guests like yourself, who are putting so much time and thought into all of these, and it's great that everyone's getting so much out of it. And everyone will be getting lots out of this, including Dancing Canes.
Speaker 1:Apologies for your incoming cancellation of this podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and thank you all for listening. Don't forget, we do have stranded with a stranger, which is our monday edition. Uh, if you want to be a part of that, send in your list of eight tricks, one book and one non-magic item to sales at alakazamcouk. Please put in the subject line my desert island list, and then we can get one of those episodes recorded with you. With that being said, please do go check out Fergus's website. Keep an eye on some of his stuff. With that being said, thank you all for listening and we'll see you again soon on another episode of Desert Island Tricks. Goodbye.
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